TRASHFUTURE - PREVIEW - Britainology 73: Britain’s All-Time Hardest Bastards

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

It's Dave Courtney in memoriam month on Britainology for November and as a result we have got two episodes for you, honouring the man himself by delving into the concept of the hard geezer. In this first of two episodes, Milo offers Nate a selection of Britain's all time hardest bastards for his delectation. Later in the month the boys will be consuming Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men. Full episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/93237263?pr=true Are you in Barcelona? Come see Milo's stand-up on Friday 24 November! https://www.eventbrite.es/e/stand-up-comedy-in-english-milo-edwards-sentimental-tickets-739312823557          

No list would be complete without of course Lenny the governor McLean now. I don't know what was what level of familiarity? Did you have a Lenny the governor McLean? No, no, then you have met you've mentioned him and I think we've talked about him in passing When it came to stuff like yeah Dave Courtney and the movie legend, but I don't really know that much about him I violence are the tested. And you know, I've been doing violence for 30 years. Why? To put food on a table. Was he the guy that had the line about like,

it was like, you got a little bit tasty? Was that him or was that somebody? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought about that. Because I've sent you some videos. So Lenny's the Governor McLean, maybe familiar to some, even international listeners, as if you've seen the film lock,

Stock and Too's, Mocking Barrels, letting the Governor McLean pay his Barry the Baptist, who's like the mob bodyguard enforcer that is sort of like the enemy of Vinny Jones' character. I think, if I'm remembering the film correctly. Wait, it's Northern Monkey. Fucking Northern Monkey's that guy. I think so, yeah, like the huge guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing I've ever claimed was fucking Gigant. He was one of those guys who died in his like early 60s of simply being too large. Like I see the only way you can really describe it. Like he was like six foot three and 20 stone. He was like absolutely Gigant. For American listeners, 20 stone is...

280 pounds, yeah. Yeah, it's a big guy. It's a big fella. And so Leonard John McClain, born in 1949, died in 1998. English Unlicensed Boxer, Bouncer, Bodyguard, Businessman, and Actor, known as the Governor, the King of the Cobbles, and the hardest man in Britain. Well, we know some people who had dispute that. McClain's pugilist reputation began in the East and London in the late 1960s and was sustained

through the late 1980s. He stated in his autobiography that he had been involved in between 2000 and 3000 unlicensed fights. In his prime, the 6-foot 3-inch tall McLean weighed over 20 stone, yet 280 pounds, 130 kilos, was considered the unofficial heavyweight champion of Great Britain. Along with being an unlicensed boxer, McLean was an enforcer in London's criminal underworld and a respected feared figure. He often associated with infamous criminals, such as the Kray twins, Ronnie Biggs, and Charles Bronson.

He was also known in London Nightclub scene as a bounce subway off of managed security. This is sort of a common and overlacking, it's just people being bouncing. We joked about Dave Courtney being the, you know, the doant for the mob, but I guess yet being a bouncer is just kind of, it's just one of those things you do if you're, if you're a ganglion guy.

Hmm. So essentially, McLean got beaten up a lot as, as a kid by his stepdad. And he was, he was given the nickname, 10 men, Len, because of how men it would take him to separate, to pull him off his opponent in the ring once he'd beaten them, because he would go into such a rage in the boxing ring. And he's a big fella. McLean's son, Jamie later, said,

my dad wasn't a born fighter, he was uneducated in a product of his upbringing, traumatized by what he'd been through, and probably had mental health problems as a result of all that. Fighting was all in you. It's all of interesting when you get, because I sent you these videos of Lenny the Governor McLean later in life and he's kind of taken on this. I would advise looking these up on YouTube

because they're such geyserology. He's like shirtless on a sun lounger out in his garden between two British Bulldog statues, just like philosophizing about his life as a man his job was hitting people in fancy. And I'm always thinking, I'm always on the ball, 48. Yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable. And in a way, it's just like, we can put these in the show notes to like some of the links to these videos, because it's just like, it does explain so much. I think

that this would be the kind of thing that if you watched a movie like sexy beast with no context, you'd be like, this is just a really weird creative imagination. It's like, no, no, this is kind of, this is intending to draw from real things. Yeah, so some of his most famous boxing fights were with Roy Roy Shaw, who will come onto in a minute. Roy Shaw, a scary man, certainly, and more of a criminal than Lenny, like Lenny was kind of like, he knew a lot of criminals because he was an unlicensed boxer and a bouncer, but not really a criminal himself. Whereas Roy Shaw was very much a criminal who was also a boxer.

Gotcha. himself, whereas Roy Shaw was very much a criminal who was also a boxer. But I think in a pure, Roy Shaw possibly scarier in the sense of level of nefariousness, like I think Roy Shaw, like quite a nasty man, but Lenny the Governor McClein definitely a scarier man in terms of like physicality. Lenny, if you had to fight one of the two it's Roy sure every time um and so they they had three unlicensed matches and basically Lenny managed to lose the first one due to some kind of like chicaneery basically and then they had two rematches in which um Lenny basically killed him. I mean, it was like, you can see again, these are up on YouTube.

There's one where he knocks him out of the ring with a punch, because he hits him so hard, and then proceeds to climb up on one of the corners of the ring and just yell, who's a fucking governor? It's like, honestly, the levels of geezer are off the charts. Anyway, so I wanna talk a bit about these videos. I mean, I did the the violence quite earlier.

I think we're gonna cut some of these in because they are great. There's this bit where he's talking about when guys come to the, when they come to the door of the nightclub and he's like, you're a nice guy, I'm a nice guy. I say good evening sir, good evening, have a nice night sir. You wanna be a tough guy a nice guy, I'm a nice guy. I say good evening, good evening, have a nice night, sir. You want to be a tough guy? Why do you want to be a tough guy? You're

going to get your so all ripped. And then he doesn't think where he's like, he's like, he's like, someone tries to be a tough guy, they get this look, I'll show you the look now. And he doesn't look like an indescribable like confused chimp. It's like, it's such a weird face. Let's pull this's such a weird face. Let's pull this video off right now just just just. All I've ever known in all of my years, all of my own, I've known his violence, violence, violence, violence, violence, violence. I don't know fucking how you violence.

I just messed it. But I've done it for 40 years or 30 years in the club world. But I've done it to put food on the table. Where anybody is drinking alcohol, of course it's tanks because you know they come in nice guys. They have drinks and after the fifth drink, I don't know where they want to be tough guys. Why? Why do you want to be a tough guy you are? 500 pounds suit on why do you want to be a tough guy you need you suit rich? You want smuggling blood How is that good now?

Unbelievable man, geez. It's the way it then just cuts to that image that says the danger zone Also in that same video skip to 620, there's this bit where he just starts going on about modern bouncers and how they're all per se and it's so funny. What a bad, there's a fight, it takes them free weeks to put their hands up. The new breeze of dawn in the week all poses, they look good. But then when it goes off where are they in the corner looking good it's so funny because this is from this documentary called bounces from the 90s and they're just like they're interviewing Lenny and they're just showing all

this footage of like roided up modern bounces with like close crop beards and stuff and it's just going look at at them, bunch of fucking pansies. They're doing them so dirty because they're just like standing there posing with this commentary from this guy. So good. Genuinely also the outfitted these guys are work as you said extremely 90s.

It just has the look, it's like the, it's like the, was it lonely island video, was it dick in a box, like them dressed up like fucking coloring me bad or something like that. Like yeah, it's unreal. So now if you pull up the next video, this is, and I think this is the sort of thing he means that the modern bounce wouldn't be capable of. You skipped to 220. His hardest achievement recently, he says, was taking on two gangs or firms of 15 single-maker single-handed.

I knocked about six out. All the sticks out went to work. And the rest of them all run. When you say pull the sticks out, but... Oh, you know, when you get a firm, come after you're about 15 handed. You've got to, you know, you've got to use a stick, you know, you still have a stick on the door, I'm used to use that, you know. Because when people look for trouble, when they come in looking for trouble, you know,

and they tell me, then you've got to run, you know. That was my job on the door anyway, but that's not really all there. Now, I mean,'m in this fight game. What happened to the 15 people? Well, I don't know. I'm not worried about them. Long as I wasn't there. You were at that time. Only means, means, were...

What I went into. No marks on there though. Is there? And you knocked seven of them out. That's six, seven. And the rest of them run. The rest of them run. Because I was cowards. You sound a bit of a bully.

Nah, you're joking. Genomin'. Not a bully. Genomin'.